Blood Magic
by selkieskins
Summary: Lidiya has defeated the demon that resided within Connor for the time being with the help of blood mage Jowan. But she knows she cannot save him - therefore she will be the one to kill him.


This is my first Dragon Age: Origins fanfic, concerning my favourite characters and my elven mage Lidiya.

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**Blood Magic**

She asked her companions to wait for her at the top. She wanted to be alone to do this.

The staircase was dark and cold, the walls slightly damp. She ran her hand over them as she descended, trying to keep her balance on the uneven steps. The only light came from her staff, a weak, wavering white light that bleached the colour from everything. This was not a happy place, nor a comfortable one. The bare stone floor was dirty, both with mud and other, less normal things - dried blood, bone shards, and rotten straw lay every now and then in her path. Her shoes made a strange shuffling sound as she walked.

She reached the bottom and continued on through the first room, a guard room where the jailor had surely slept, the recently defeated corpses of the walking dead still lying where they fell. Shivers coursed down her spine. She was careful not to step in the tacky blood, already partially congealed before she and her companions had spilled it. The smell was awful too. It was all she could do not to gag.

She reached the dungeon itself, pausing in the doorway. He was in here, the man she had to kill. The man who had been her best friend since she was five, him six. The man she had loved, and still loved. The man she had watched fall in love with one of their captors. The man she had helped to escape, despite knowing in her heart he was lying to her. The man who she had volunteered to kill. Almost too much to bear, really.

She continued into the room.

His was the first cell on the right. He sat against the back wall, eyes closed tightly.

"Jowan."

He looked up at her, eyes full of fear, and stood.

"Lidiya? They told me that you are to be..."

"Yes." Her voice was harsh, her eyes hard. "I volunteered to do it."

He lowered his eyes. "I... I suppose it is fitting that the person to lay me to rest should be the one I trusted most."

Her resolve wavered then. She had wanted to punish him for everything he had done... but she couldn't do it. "I asked that you be released," she murmured. "But the Bann refused, so I asked to be the one to... to do it. I wanted to say goodbye."

His eyes flicked back up to hers, a confused frown on his face. "Even after all I've done?"

"Even after all you've done." They stood for a few moments in pained silence, until Lidiya spoke again.

"When I was in the Fade, I spoke with the demon. She tried so hard to make me let her have the child, tried to strike so many bargains. At first she offered to teach me blood magic, and I was so tempted-"

Jowan made a noise of disapproval, but she held up her hand. "I thought if I knew what you were going through, what you were doing, then I'd be able to help you. But I saw that was stupid - blood magic couldn't free you from a death sentence. Even so... And then she offered..." Lidiya paused. "Do you remember, on the day we both left the tower, when you first introduced me to Lily? Do you remember what I said?"

He nodded, still frowning. "You made a joke about... us. About the two of us being together."

Lidiya looked away, staring into the darkness where the light from her staff didn't penetrate. "I wasn't joking. I said I was because Lily was there... and I hadn't said anything before because it wasn't until you told me, probably three months before that day, that you had met a girl and I realised I was jealous."

Her voice cracked as she said the last words. Jowan stepped forward and reached a hand through the bars, awkwardly putting his hand on her shoulder. "I didn't think you were in to that kind of thing. Love and romance. I just thought you weren't interested."

"You're so dense," she laughed, but it came out like a sob.

"If you'd told me..." he said softly, but she interrupted.

"If I'd told you, you would've said no. You had Lily. If I see her again, I'll be sure to tell her how much you loved her."

Jowan nodded, then stepped back, drawing his hand back through the bars. "But back to the task at hand."

Lidiya nodded, no longer trusting herself to talk. The Bann had told her not to take any chances, and that meant not opening the cell. But she knew Jowan wouldn't try to escape. He seemed to believe the only way he could make up for his mistakes was to die, and if that was to be the last thing she could ever do to help him then so be it. But she would let him have his freedom while she was doing it.

She took the key from where it hung on her belt, next to her knife, and opened the door. She stepped back and allowed Jowan to step a little closer.

"How are you going to do this?" he asked quietly.

"I would cast mind blast to stun you, so you won't feel it so much, then... I have my knife. Is... is that okay?"

"Yes. I deserve less, Lidiya, thank you." He took a hesitant step forwards then, and pressed a soft kiss onto her cheek. He didn't move away afterwards, his face lingering inches from her own. He was letting her have this, she realised. He was saying sorry, showing her what might have been had they not both been so foolish in their own ways. She brushed her lips over his, gently, restraining herself when all she wanted was him. And then she stepped back.

She began to raise her hands, shaping the spell slowly. She knew once it was cast she would have to move quickly so it didn't wear off before Jowan was dead. It might knock him out completely, or it might simply numb his mind, but whatever it did it would be better than stabbing him while he was fully conscious.

A wave of telekinetic energy shot from her hands, slamming through him. He staggered a little and she rushed forwards to support him, holding up by his waist with one arm as she unsheathed her knife.

As red blood pooled around the white metal blade, he barely cried out. His knees bent and he sagged to the floor; Lidiya knelt quickly so he would not hit the ground, and held him, his head lolling against her shoulder. Strands of dark hair had fallen on his face, covering his eyes, and Lidiya moved them away to reveal tears welling. There were tears already on his face, but they were hers, not his.

One scarred hand found its way to cover hers, smaller, softer. She watched as his eyes flickered, open, shut, open, shut, so quickly, then open. Open, and still.

She pressed a kiss to his forehead and nestled her face in his hair, holding him to her as if the world would end if she let go. She wanted to just stay like this until the darkspawn reached her and devoured her and stopped her from crying.

Torchlight approaching, and voices, raised in concern. Footsteps behind her. The tapping of Alistair and Leliana's boots as they walked, and the clicking of Rabbit's claws against the stone.

Alistair called out. A string of words that she wasn't listening to, then her name. Her name again, more loudly as he stepped through the door and saw her.

Leliana gasped. "There is so much blood! Is any of it yours?"

Lidiya was silent and still. The blood was everywhere, she realised, and Jowan was so cold. She began to sob now, her silent tears making way for floods and howling. Rabbit snuffled in her ear, nudged her shoulder with his snout, and stepped away to stare sadly at her. Leliana crouched in front of her, eyes carefully focused on Lidiya's face and not the dead man in her arms.

"You need to come back up now."

"I don't want to leave him here."

Leliana spoke quietly, not understanding but sympathetic none the less. "I will stay here if you wish. They have converted a room upstairs into a morgue. You can ask if they will lay him there until arrangements can be made concerning his burial. I am sure the Bann will let you bury him where you want, after you saved Connor."

Lidiya did not speak, but nodded. Carefully, she laid Jowan on the floor, closing his eyelids with her fingertips as she did so. Leliana sat where she had been crouched, just out of the reach of the pool of Jowan's blood.

Alistair put his arm around Lidiya's shoulders and lead her slowly back up the stairs.

***

When Lidiya had returned to the Bann held up by her companion and so covered in blood, Teagan was a little surprised, but lent them rooms for the night so they might rest and clean themselves before setting out to look for the Urn. And he had allowed Jowan to be buried in the graveyard to be dug for all the victims, eventually persuaded that it should be in a marked grave. Lidiya was very thankful.

She cleaned the blood from herself. A harried servant had brought her a large tub filled with water. She stripped off the bloodied robe, dropping it on the floor as she climbed in and submerged herself in the water. The blood was everywhere: her hands, her face, her hair, even on her legs. She cried a little as she washed it away, but as the water started to cool and she began to shiver, she stopped. She was too drained to cry anymore.

She towelled herself dry then flopped onto the bed.

For the first time in a long while, her dreams were not of darkspawn. She dreamt of blood magic and demons. She dreamt of the choice she had made to keep the memory of her friend alive. She dreamt of reaching out for a hand crisscrossed with scars and saw that her own was the same.


End file.
